DOCUMENT RESUME ED 399 496 CG 027 347 AUTHOR Rickman, David L. TITLE Toward an Understanding of Personality: An Overview of Four Approaches in Personality Psychology. PUB DATE [87] NOTE 26p. PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Cognitive Development; Literature Reviews; Personality; *Personality Assessment; Personality Development; *Personality Theories; Personality Traits IDENTIFIERS Phenomenological Analysis; Social Learning Theory ABSTRACT Personality is defined as the dynamic organization, within an individual, of the systems that determine his or her characteristic behavior or thought. The study of personality involves many aspects of human behavior. Four approaches used to study personality are presented in this document:(1) Social Learning theory;(2) Trait theory;(3) Phenomenological theory; and (4) Cognitive-Development theory. Some principles of these theories overlap, but basic concepts are distinguishable. Social Learning theory's basic tenet is that human behavior results from an organism's past learning as it has developed through interaction with the environment. Trait theory asserts that personality is more or less organized by persistent characteristics or dimensions o individual differences--within each individual there exist predispositions to respond to situations in a certain manner. Phenomenological theory stresses the cognitive acquisition of meaning from stimuli an individual is presented with in life's daily activities. Cognitive-Developmental theory traces development of personality from birth to adulthood as capacities and concerns and thought processes develop. Some theorists posit that all normal individuals pass through the same sequential periods. Major theorists and approaches to personality assessment are described for each approach. Contains 23 references. (JBJ) **************************;.4k****************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** The Psychology of Personality 1 Running Head: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSONALITY Toward an Understanding of Personality: An Overview of Four Approaches in Personality Psychology David L. Rickman Wayne State University U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL CENTER (ERIC) HAS BEEN GRANTED BY This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) BEST COPY AVALABLE 9 The Psychology of Personality 2 Toward an Understanding of Personality: An Overview of Four Approaches in Personality Psychology Introduction Personality is defined as the dynamic organization within an individual of the systems that determine his or her characteristic behavior or thought. The study of personality involves many aspects of human behavior - almost everything a human being does or can do. The various approaches used in the study of personality have synthesized what we already know, stimulated further research, and, in turn, specified their own view of personality. Four of these approaches will be presented in this paper. They are the social-learning, trait, phenomenological, and cognitive approaches. Prior to any further reading, one should be aware that some of the principles of these theories overlap, however, their basic concepts are distinguishable. It should also be noted that the cognitive approach to the development of personality is, relative to the others, a more recently unfolding area of interest. For this reason, a discussion of the cognitive approach will be presented last, with special consideration given to its underlying principles. The Social-Learning Approach The first approach we shall discuss is social-learning theory. Contrary to the organismic schools-of-thought which emphasize human response to internal forces, social-learning 3 The Psychology of Personality 3 theory's basic tenet is that human behavior results from an organism's past learning as it has developed through interaction with the environment. Perhaps it is proper to introduce B.F. Skinner's principle of operant conditioning as laying the foundation for social learning theory. Skinner never developed an implicit theory of personality, however, his principles have facilitated the social-learning approach to how personality develops. Skinner held that the frequency of a response will increase after it has beenfollowed by a favorable outcome (Mischel, 1986). This simply means that an individual is most likely to behave in such a manner that results in a favorable outcome for him/herself, yet is least likely to behave in a way that will elicit an unfavorable result. This is called operant conditioning, and according to Skinner, much of our behavior involves acting upon the environment to generate consequences, thus resulting in the control of our behavior by its own consequences and ultimately, by the environment. As previously mentioned, social-learning theory emphasizes the influence of the environment on the behavior of organisms. It has also been stated that Skinner never developed what purports to explain personality. In light of the principle of operant conditioning, however, one can safely argue that an environmentally dependent basis in personality does exist. Is it possible that Skinner's neglect of the concept of personality is due to his total rejection of another concept - free will? This 4 The Psychology of Personality 4 is doubtful, for Skinnerian theory holds that personality is in itself observable behavior, and vice-versa. To Skinner, our behavior is shaped entirely by the contingencies of the environment. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity, (1972), Skinner writes: In the scientific picture a person is a member of the species shaped by evolutionary contingencies of survival, displaying behavioral processes which bring him under the control of the environment in which he lives, and largely under the control of a social environment which he and millions of others like him have constructed and maintained during the evolution of a culture. The direction of the controlling relation is reversed: A person does not act upon the world, the world acts upon him.(p. 211) The above words illustrate Skinner's idea of how we, as human beings, develop our behavior patterns. Now we must ask ourselves, are behavior patterns the sole content of what we refer to as personality? Judging from Skinner's emphasis on observable behavior, it is safe to assume that he would answer this question with an unequivocal "yes". Maintaining Skinner's emphasis on observable behavior has been a function of contemporary social-learning approach to personality; however, present day social-learning theorists, as Staub (1980) notes, "are not content with research in which rewards or punishments are assumed de facto to be rewards or 5 The Psychology of Personality 5 punishments" (p. 208). This implies that the personal evaluation of events by the individual experiencing them are taken into consideration. Social-learning theorists are currently attempting to assess concerns that individuals possess toward stimuli they might encounter. In other words, extrapolation of Skinnerian theory has taken place in social-learning theory. As one theorist (Klinger, 1975) points out, "an event can serve as an incentive or reinforcement only insofar as that event is a current concern for an individual - 'reinforcement' meaning an event that has the power to shape behavior" (p. 82). This idea of "current concern" - or, put simply, what matters to an individual - is one social-learning theorist's view of how cognition occurs. (Cognition, the process of knowing, will be discussed more fully in another section of this paper.) Events that have the power to shape behavior can be exposed to humans through a process that Bandura and his associates (1961) call "modeling". These researchers exposed children to adults who behaved aggressively toward an air-filled, plastic "Bobo" doll. During this procedure, the adults would accompany their physical thrusts with verbal abuse directed toward the doll. Bandura then allowed the children to play with the doll, and through observation concluded that the children, in imitating the acts of the aggressive adult models, outwardly expressed both physical and verbal aggression toward the "Bobo" doll. According to Aronson (1984), this classic experiment suggests that seeing a 6 The Psychology of Personality 6 person behave aggressively serves as an impetus for children to engage in innovative aggressive behavior. Some people are aggressive while others are not. Whether or not aggressive behavior is viewed as a socially-learned phenomenon, one can confidently place it within the realm of personality. Social-learning theorists have contributed immensely to the study of personality, however, they have not emphasized the organization of an individual's distinguishing character traits, attitudes, or habits. Indeed, social-learning theories argue that we are constantly learning from our environment and developing our personalities, in a sense, from what the environment dictates. To the social-learning theorists, environmental contingencies